


to build a home

by nicole_writes



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Duscur (Fire Emblem), F/M, Fluff, Mercedue Week 2020, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26803723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicole_writes/pseuds/nicole_writes
Summary: Mercedes pays a visit to someone after the war. / for mercedue week
Relationships: Mercedes von Martritz/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 13
Kudos: 63





	to build a home

**Author's Note:**

> I LOVE THIS SHIP. 
> 
> I wish I could contribute to all the days, but instead, I offer you a contribution to Day 3: Education because it's all I have time for...
> 
> Let them be soft. Let it happen.

The path beneath her feet is worn and weathered and clearly hasn’t been well looked after, but the weeds along the side of the road have been tamed and twisted back in a manner that is more than a bit familiar to her, so it tells her that she is on the right track. Mercedes adjusts her hat against the brilliant sun overhead and keeps walking, following the carefully tending weeds towards the half-crumbled stone house that she had been pointed to by a lovely woman in the village. 

When she stands in front of the house, it looks a bit silly. The doorframes are much too short and the house itself looks small enough that he probably has to duck every time he’s inside of the house. There’s no smoke coming from the chimney and the gate at the side of the house is pushed open partway. 

She opens it fully and it squeaks on the hinges. She’s almost surprised that it is still attached to the stone wall surrounding the house at all with everything that had happened. The earth on the other side of the wall is damp from recent watering and there are linear grooves dug into the ground to mark channels for where to plant seeds. 

Mercedes follows the garden back around to the rear of the house where she finds what she had been looking for. Dedue is kneeling with his back to her, up to his elbows in dirt. He is completely engrossed in his task and doesn’t even notice her approach. Mercedes stops a few feet back and admires him for a moment. 

Here, in his element, Dedue is completely at ease in a way that she has not seen him in a long time. His heavy armour is nowhere to be seen and he carries no weapons aside from a simple garden spade. His shoulders are rounded and relaxed and there is a glint of sweat on the back of his neck from probably hours working under the hot sun. 

She bumps her heel against the stone wall and the clicking noise startled Dedue. He fumbles with the small nursery plant he’s holding as he turns to face her, eyes wide. His face slackens a bit as he recognizes her and Mercedes clasps her hands together, smiling. 

“Hello Dedue,” she greets. 

His lips tick into a small smile as he nods in greeting. He turns back to the garden in front of him, gently nestling the plant into the dirt before carefully coating its roots until it is planted. He stands, brushing off earth-coated hands on his pants. 

“Hello Mercedes,” he says then, his towering form blocking the sun and submerging her in his shadow. He scratches at the side of his head. “I did not know you would be here.” He frowns. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to see you, of course,” she replies, smiling. “I had originally stopped in Fhirdiad, but Dimitri said you had requested leave from the capital for a while. It took me a while and a whole lot of questions to figure out that you had come here.”

Dedue smiles faintly. “I suppose I did not make myself the easiest person to find.”   


Mercedes taps a finger against her lips. “No, although if I had just asked Ashe as I had originally thought to, I would have ended up here much more quickly.”   


Dedue looks between her and the unfinished garden he had been looking at. “I am afraid that I am in not much of a position to be hosting anyone here as it stands.”   


Mercedes shakes her head and wanders to the half-crumbled wall on the other side of the garden which is shaded by the house. She perches on the edge of the wall. “That’s alright! I did just spring this visit on you unexpectedly after all.”   


“I had thought you might send word first,” he admits. 

She giggles. “But that removes the fun of surprising you!”

“There is not much here,” he tries to say, but she waves her hand, cutting him off. 

“You’re here,” she points out. “And I am here to see you, so that is more than enough.”   


“Mercedes,” he says, “why are you here?”

“Because I wished to see Duscur,” she answers simply. “I told you back during the war that I wished to learn about your culture.”   


“Duscur is dead,” Dedue says, but he doesn’t sound bitter about it like he once had. 

“I disagree,” she says. She points out the row of little plants he has been working on. “From what I can see, it is just going to take some work to rebuild. You know a few things about growth, Dedue, and if the greenhouse at the Monastery was any indication, you certainly have a green thumb.”

His brow furrows as he processes her words. “Are you saying that I will regrow Duscur?”

“Not alone,” she assures. “That’s what I’m here for.”   


Dedue kneels again, noticing that her seat on the wall seems semi-permanent for the moment. He carefully creates a small hole for his next plant and dips it into the soil. His brow is creased and Mercedes just waits, resting her hands in her lap.    


“You are serious about this,” he notes quietly after a few moments had elapsed. “You think that I can rebuild here.”   


Mercedes turns her head, studying the house. “Was this your family’s home?”

“Yes.”

“It could use a little love and maybe some higher doorframes, but it’s not unsalvageable,” she says. “In fact, with the right kind of love, I could see it as quite a beautiful home.” She looks back at Dedue, her eyes softening. “I don’t see why the rest of Duscur has to be any different. If you take it one brick, one plant, one house at a time, I think it could be rebuilt.” 

Dedue looks away from her, digging silently into the dirt. “I think I have something that I could make for a meal tonight.”

“I’m sure the Professor would be happy to redistribute the Church’s resources here to set up a school too,” Mercedes says, tactfully ignoring his attempt at deflection. 

Dedue stills. Slowly, his head turns towards her and she sees a slight spark of hope in his eyes. “Schools?” he asks. “For Duscuran children?”

Mercedes hums. “It’s perhaps a bit presumptuous to build the schools here right away, but there are rather large groups of Duscurans who live in Fhirdiad, aren’t there? Maybe we should start there.”   


Dedue ponders her proposal. “Dimitri would be thrilled,” he admits. “He has asked me to speak to the people there, but I have been afraid.”   


Mercedes steps off the wall, crossing the garden towards him. “Are you afraid that they do not view you as one of your own?”

Dedue looks down again, kneading his fingers into the soil. “I have forgotten much of my own language,” he confesses. “What right do I have to reinstitute culture and teaching to my people?”

“There,” she says, catching him. “You said,  _ my people _ . That means you view yourself as one of them. That in itself, Dedue, is what gives you the right.” 

She kneels in the dirt on the other side of his little row of plants so that they are facing each other. She doesn’t worry about her skirts. There is no one to see here besides the two of them in the half-ruined garden. 

“Byleth, they would help?”

“With education? Of course. The Church of Seiros would gladly support your endeavours,” Mercedes pledges. 

“There would be teachings of the other gods: the war gods, the gods of nature. There would likely be little to no mention of Seiros and the Goddess at all.”   


Mercedes shrugs. “So? They are not of your culture. Byleth is Archbishop and Dimitri is King. They are two powerful allies that we have who are interested in detaching the Church from the State.” She reaches out and rests her hands lightly atop Dedue’s. 

“And you?” he murmurs, turning his hands up to hold hers. Neither of them bat an eye at the dirt clinging to his fingers that he transfers to her clean, pale skin. “Would you help me?”   


Mercedes smiles and squeezes his hands. “I would be honoured to help. And, maybe, if we help the Duscurans in Fhirdiad, they might return here. Someday, they would be able to return here to help you rebuild and to revive the true culture of your land.”

She directs their hands to the small row of plants he has planted. She recognizes the plants: they’re hearty things that grow in rocky soil and with very little water. They are wild Duscuran plants and Dedue has tamed them into something new.    


“There is very little here to entice the people back,” Dedue reminds.    


Mercedes shrugs. “It’s not an easy job to rebuild after a tragedy like this. Fire has changed these lands, but it has not broken them. You have proved that to me.”

Dedue’s hands tighten around hers for a moment before he releases her hands. “Mercedes, if you are really interested in helping me, I would be honoured to speak to Dimitri and to Byleth about opening a Duscuran school in Fhirdiad.”   


She smiles radiantly at him. “Excellent!” She rises to her feet, brushing off her hands and her skirts. “Then tell me what I can help you with here before we have to make dinner for the evening.”   


Dedue’s laugh is a low rumble in his chest. “I will finish up here and then we can gather some wild herbs together.” He waves back at the fence. “It is a long walk, surely you would like to sit in the shade.”

Mercedes sits back on the wall. “You’ve been here for a few weeks, haven’t you? There are some updates in the capital which I’m sure you would be interested to hear about.”   


Dedue smiles at her and her stomach warms with a mild, unfamiliar affection. “I would like that very much.”

“Well, you must here about Annette’s new position first of all,” Mercedes begins, excitedly delving into the news she has brought to share with him from the capital. 

Dedue goes back to work on his plants, but he smiles and nods to the points in her story as she updates him on the lives of their friends since he has been here. 

* * *

Dedue really is quite a miracle worker in the kitchen. Even in the mostly destroyed kitchen of his old home, he makes them a lovely steamed vegetable dish with spices and herbs grown both in his garden and around it. Mercedes teases him about one of the herbs he uses, knowing that it is the same herb she had once miscooked so badly she had started a fire and he laughs at her, reminding her that these things take practice. 

They sit outside together on the crumbled fence and look up at the stars after they have finished eating and cleaned the dishes. The skies in Duscur are wide and clear, unblocked by the mountains around Garreg Mach and unobscured by the lights of Fhirdiad. The stars are endless and beautiful and Mercedes’s breath is stolen right from the first moment that she looks up. 

Dedue smiles at her awe and he points out the constellations that his mother had taught him. He tells her about the land gods and the war gods and the gods of love and fertility and beauty. His voice softens when he speaks of his mother and Mercedes holds his hand, her eyes roaming to his face instead of the skies he speaks about with such reverence. 

There is something holy about the silence of the moment. The wind whistles faintly in the background and distantly, the hum of bugs remind her of the life that clings to Duscur despite everything that it has undergone. She thanks the Goddess for the life that Dedue clings to despite everything  _ he _ has undergone. 

Under the starlight, he is beautiful. 

“Dedue,” she says softly, once his stories have faded to silent reminiscence. 

“Yes?”

“When we return to Fhirdiad, I had hoped to do it a little differently.”   


His brows furrow. “I am not sure I understand.”

“I care for you,” she confesses gently. “I find myself caring for you quite absolutely, actually.”

He wraps his large, weathered hands around hers, seemingly speechless. 

“Mercedes,” he murmurs. 

In the dark, she can see the slope of his nose and the planes of his cheeks as she withdraws one hand from his grip, lifting it up to his face. 

“I had hoped,” she continues, breathless, “that I might do it as your partner. And that you might someday return here with me as my husband.”

Dedue leans down towards her. “You would return with me again?”   


“As many times as it takes for us to rebuild,” she says firmly. “Or to build. Something old or something new. Whatever you dream of.”   


When he kisses her, he tastes like the food he had prepared for them hours ago. He is warm, like the sun he had gardened below earlier in the day. He is gentle, like every touch he has ever bestowed upon her and Mercedes is so, so in love. 

“I love you,” she whispers to his lips. 

“And I, you,” he replies to the quiet night. He rests his forehead against hers, his shoulders hunching to relieve his neck of strain. “Thank you, Mercedes. For coming.”

She smiles and closes her eyes. In the dark, she hears her heart thrumming and she can see the future that awaits them: a stone house with high doorways and a large kitchen on damp soil and surrounded by a garden growing food and flowers. It is a beautiful dream and a hopeful future. 


End file.
